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The Power of Video: Getting Started and Beyond

Thank you, ladies, we are on lesson nine, the power of video getting started and beyond, but like always before we dive in and let's talk about what we just covered in less than eight branding with visuals, we talked about why you have to prioritize your visuals, why you shouldn't you stock photos, my photo set up and how to take beautiful product photos with candace string um, and now we're moving on to video. The objective is to understand the value of using video to grow your following and to give you the basic tools to start creating high quality videos that your followers can't get enough of. This is like we're starting to get into the fun stuff, the foundational work has been laid, and now we're getting to have fun and have a party. What you'll learn, why you should use video in your marketing to grow you're following my video essentials, my blog's video blueprint and how I set up my lighting kit and record videos so that way, if you kind of want to steal that idea and use it you...

rself, you totally come. If you don't learn the basics of using video to attract more followers and customers, you're losing out on a valuable way to instantly connect to your target market. When somebody sees you on video it gives them the opportunity to get to know like entrust you like nothing else when you are writing there is a little bit of that barrier when you're on video they get to see you if you want to use video within your business but don't learn how to do it you'll turn off potential followers and customer so if you're the the awkward person who doesn't really like video at all but you're using video and you're being not yourself at all kind of robotic and awkward and like there's a camera there and you're making like weird movements and pauses than it feels awkward for the person watching it we've all watched a video online and it feels very awkward for the viewer so we don't want that to happen video can be intimidating but if you learn the basics you'll feel confident that you can do it instead of continuing to avoid it one of those things that once you start with it you really can make a lot of progress really quickly so why should you use video in your marketing to grow your following I think it works really well I used to put out a video every week for a really long time I don't remember I don't know how many videos I put out but it was a good number of videos it was a lot was definitely at least close to one hundred it gives you an instant connection unlike anything else you feel like you're friends with the person when they're talking to you on video especially if they're looking at you and smiling and telling you about something you feel that connection and it's easier to get to know like and trust and for those of you who really struggle with the writing this is the go to video is the place that you should be looking at if writing is your struggle because you could do very similar things you still have to write the intro so that people watch the video you still have to write the headline so that you get people to click and come over and check out the intro and then watch the video but you can take away a lot of that writing process if you use video so what about live streaming video like paris crap periscope to grow that is a newer platform and it's also another really great way teo instantly connect to your market and unlike the other type of video it's easier in some in some ways you don't have to have this big set up you don't have to edit afterwards since it's just you talk into the camera people talking back at you you have an audience where is when you're doing video by yourself? It can feel a little weird sometimes because there's nobody there and you're trying to imagine who you're talking to the periscope you have somebody there and so it's a really connection, it feels like this is real life for this person, and I really get to know who they are. I've talked about hillary rushford in her periscopes, and she is one of those people that I feel like now I know who she is before I could not picture that in my mind, and I was following her on instagram and I love her photos on instagram, but I didn't know who she would be like as a person until I started watching her on periscope. I feel like I could be best friends with her now, and I get really excited to see her when she's on there is anybody totally terrified of live streaming video? Uh, yeah, but amanda, you've done some of it. I've done about four, and I finish them really quickly so I could be done now. It's not being ableto edit, I want to be able to edit what I'm saying, what I'm doing, and without that, I feel like overwhelmed so you don't mind regular video that you can add it it's the life part of it. I have the opposite, uh, thing about the editing because I don't know how to edit video. And I don't know how to make it perfect so periscope is a platform where it doesn't have to be edited. It doesn't have to be perfect so I can jump on and the learning curve is so much less yeah, that's true that's true first time I took me a long time to start doing video and I knew I should because I it you know and and I answered all of in the quiz, it's the highest score that I had and everything and it just makes sense for me to do it, but I put it off and put it off and put it off for so long and the first time that I made a video it tell me it was like a two minute video and it took me fourteen hours or something absurd because I was like, not perfect, not perfect, not perfect, not perfect for so long and then finally, the light like the sun is going down. A friend of mine dropped off a bottle of wine because she's like her julie, we talked on the phone she's like you don't sound okay right now, general stressed out, you should probably tell of it and and I was like, I finally had to finish the thing because the sun was going down and I don't have the lighting and stuff to do after sundown thank goodness because I would probably still be doing that video now and so I I finally did it and it took me twenty minutes to but that idea that it can have it perfect meant that I thought I should and that's just the tragic mistake for me it's just don't work out well yeah but like anything else you tell people with the writing if they're not going to be perfect that when you're starting out you're not gonna be perfect at all but yeah where is the compassion for yourself? Not a thing well I'm throwing lots of it your way have all of this compassion you sure got the worst I mean after that I've got much more patient with myself on video and I set myself up too that I had seven day challenge for people that and they signed up I had a couple hundred people who are waiting every day for a video so it was like I had to and by the end of that seven days that's not there anymore you know, I had two very quickly realise that I'm either going to spend my entire next week doing this to myself or I'm going to get over it and I did eventually get over on so yeah yeah it gets easier I think it's easier and I bet some of this takes that you were like no, I can't use this we're perfectly fine yeah one of them the cat pan see I have this ridiculous cat that's in all you know she's all over my website and stuff now in cartoons and stuff because she's just this ridiculous overweight cat that hangs it on my desk all the time and she's like walking through the screen and then think shakes the whole thing is she's overweight that she sat down and the camera was like whoa and everybody loved it I shared on facebook and it was the most popular video I did that day for fourteen hours a video so you know take whatever lesson from that yeah yeah exactly my from heart made blawg has made so many videos where funny things happen or she says something that she didn't plan on saying and it's really ridiculous and she uses it and that's what everybody loved that's the part that everybody is excited about in lumps so we see it ourselves is oh it's a mess up but somebody else sees it as this is such a funny really moment yeah and do you raised your hand about being terrified of life streaming video how come I don't know I just feel like I'm going to say something silly or you know when parents go first started I was on there a few times but I don't know what happened I just I stopped and I start watching everyone else that's what happened? I should just kept on going but the comparison thing I think came in. I think you would be great on periscope, and I think you would really connect with your audience through live streaming video. So I had to do that in our group once, explain something. So I had to sit in the creative video point across, and you did such a great job. Yeah, that was really helpful. Thank you. Yeah. So sometimes we have to get over those hurdles, but I think it would be really good for your business, especially because you've got this service based business, which it's really good for and it's really good right now, it's a lot of business to business and that's what works really well on periscope and so okay, I think you should. I think you should give it more of a shot and try it a little bit more. And again, if you need to do something like amanda, like we talked about earlier doing it for just a few minutes and then stopping and then doing for a few minutes and stopping. And somebody was asking me that is another instructor who's going to be on creative life. She was asking me. She was saying, my fear is that I'm going to say something silly or stupid, and I just laugh it yourself everybody does it at some point in time if you're teaching three day course or boot camp it creative lives you're going to say something silly just laugh it yourself and if you do that everybody else is just going to be like ha ha ha ha! You are so funny, you know they're not going to care, right? We have tio sometimes we have to just not take ourselves so seriously that's what's going to help? Okay. Before we get into the details, I want to talk about a few things. First focus on great content and your products will sell themselves there's an example of this. Has anybody ever heard of luck? See hair? Anybody in here? Ok, check them out on youtube. The brand called lexie hair and they have over two point five million subscribers and they sell hair extensions but none of their videos are about selling hair extensions. All of the videos are hair tutorials and they're really good. I watch it all the time for hair tutorials. I don't have hair extensions but I watched their videos all the time and I have thought about like, should I get that for that one brave? That would look really nice if I had a thicker braid and I would buy from them because I watch their hair tutorial so if I did get them then it would probably be from that brand, so they're not selling their stuff constantly. They're just putting out these really great videos repurposed to make the most of video, use it as much as possible repurpose it video versus youtube so this is a big debate among people. Should I use video? Should I use youtube and it's something that holds people up? Well, I prefer vim, yell and that's what I use, but I'm not using it in a way to get people from youtube onto my site or to get people from video onto my site. I'm trying to use the videos to share with the people that I art. We have hoping that they will share my videos for me. One of the reasons I don't like youtube is how mean people are you have to have really fixed get to be putting videos up on youtube on a regular basis because they're so mean comments up there, however it's the best way if you're looking to grow from video because lots of people will find you on youtube, whereas they won't necessarily find you invite me out so it's just to toss up of what you're comfortable with and I've put videos on youtube, but I also prefer vin you because I feel like the video itself looks a little bit better and that's what matters to me as well and so I'm making the video, helping my audience and knowing that they're going to share it as opposed to making the video, hoping that I'm gonna get a bunch of new followers from that platform. So depends on what you're what you're going for, what you're trying to get the most important factor is getting comfortable in front of the camera, so practice practice practice, turn the camera on and talk turn it off, check it out, see what it looks like turning on again talk, turn it off, see what it looks like and keep doing this until it feels like you're just talking to a friend. You're sitting down having coffee and you have had five coffees because you need to be you energized. You gotta have some energy so it's not just like what you do last night, girl and said, I need to be what'd you do last night a girl, you gotta have some energy so pretend like you are your best two self you want to be your best self you want to be you and make videos for your target market? Not your competitors were gonna talk about this when we get teo content in general, especially with blogging, lots of people make the mistake of the content is more for their competitors as opposed to their target market so somebody who is making jewelry if they're selling the jewelry and they don't teach anybody how to make the jewelry like they don't have an online course where they can send people to buy from them and they're doing lots of just jewelry tutorials then they're actually helping people who want to make the jewelry instead of by the jewelry and it's not that you can't ever do that because if that's what you enjoy doing you absolutely can but you want to have the majority of your videos trying to attract your target market so I want to share with you guys my video essentials and this is in your workbook you have this printed out in your workbook looks a little bit different in there because on a slide except a bit different first I have to have tea with honey that's one of my things that my voice my throat it needs it ah lighting kits I used to use all natural light I had a house with a sun room in it and it had beautiful natural light in fact we used to have to put up sheer curtains in order to defuse the light because it was too much like but it was beautiful those videos looked so good now I have to use a lighting kit because the natural light in our house it is it isn't is great we still have the natural light but I need the lighting kit to kind of add to it blush bronzer somethings that add a little bit of color to the skin always help when you're on video now I also love false eyelashes I think they make me look better when I'm on video they pop a little bit more and anything that makes you feel more confident that's the point of that that's one of my video essentials because it makes me feel more confident so whatever makes you feel more confident go for it I think nail polish having your nails painted also it's really nice and video video camera obviously that's important you guys were going to see my video camera when we do the setup tripod you can use any tripod just make sure it's one that doesn't jiggle around it needs to be decent quality but you don't have to spend tons and tons of money on it. We got ours from a flea market because we found one there that looks really nice an outline it's good to know what you're going to talk about so that you don't ramble on for thirty minutes and then people usually don't want to watch something for that long editing software I used my movie and in fact there's a bonus video that you can check out showing you how I edit how I edit a video and I'm moving so that if that's something that's holding you back then you can check that out for anybody who has purchased the course at bonus video is available and a flattering outfit, I think you need to really feel your best when you're on video. Confidence is key to doing your best do you need to invest in anything to create better videos? So is there anything that's lacking that you really want to do videos? Maybe you took the quiz, it's something you need to be doing, you need to invest and maybe a lighting kit because you're lighting just isn't that great, or you need some sort of editing software. I'm moving on a mac is free, but maybe you have a pc would you need, and I always tell people that you should look your best aan video, and there are some people who can get on video and just have on their t shirt and jeans and no makeup and do great, but what matches my brand is I need to look but together, and I think for most brands you need to look put together so tester outfit to see how it looks. Um, video tiny patterns can look like they're moving and make your viewers nauseous and make you not make you make you a little bit nauseous during the editing process put effort into your appearance, hair and makeup first impressions matter. So when people start watching their video your video they're going to make a snap judgment that's just how things are and if you feel confident and how you look you'll see more confident this is another chance for branding I am wearing a different outfit for each lesson this is a chance for branding for me it's a chance for branding in every detail that you do what you wear how you do your make up how you do your hair what the background is all of it all of those details add up to something unique I have ah video ah blawg video blueprint for you so that you can easily create a decently short video and follow this and get yourself started so the first thing you want to do is answer these questions what's my purpose who's my target you want to know those two things going at write an attention grabbing headline we're going to talk about this in the next lesson you don't have to do this first you can film the video first and then write the headline but sometimes it helps to write the headline because it might be three tips for this and knowing that you're sharing three tips is helpful start with a curiosity provoking cliffhanger so instead of saying hi I'm april from blacksburg bell you would start with something that would excite somebody so you might say or I might say I helped sam a mom in a jeweler cut her social media time in half while doubling her sails keep watching to find out how I'm april boles olen from blacksburg bell that's going to get you to keep watching and the first few seconds or importance of start out with a little bit of a cliff ping er, this is something that I have had to change. I used to always start out with introducing myself. I think most of us are inclination is to do that, so switch that around, then introduce yourself, keep it short, share value while being your lovely self on your best day and then end with a call to action. Just follow that blueprint and you'll be good. You'll be good to go. You can switch things around if you need thio everybody's different, so talk about some ways to improve your videos shorter is almost always better when you look at a video and is really long you do you think twice before watching it? If it's somebody love or brand that you love, you might watch it anyways or if I jump on a periscope and it's going on and on and on, if it's somebody that I'm really into and loving, I will keep watching, but if it's not somebody that I'm only going to stay on for a short period of time. And when you're doing a video for your website for your blog's for about page, for your sales page shorter is usually better to get everybody through because you want to get them to that call to action because usually the call to action is something that you're gonna help them with or that they're going to dio maybe it's even to buy a product and you want to get them to that point respect your viewers time people like riel not over produced in sleek I mean, sometimes they they want that professional package, but most of the time when you're a small business, people want what's really they want to know when it really looks like entertain do things that you would normally d'oh be yourself my from heart made blawg dot com if you go and check out some of her videos, you will see that she does some really entertaining thing things like dance around with a blown up t rex or put on these big glasses and that's her personality to a t that is who she is on her best day and everybody can see that and she's is so entertaining, so don't do what you wouldn't normally dio don't do something just to do it be yourself but your best self pay attention to your lighting an audio record, a test video so set up the lighting have you're going to set it up record a video make sure that the audio sounds ok, make sure the lighting looks ok and adjust if you need teo, I can't tell you how many times people have told me that they recorded their video and then they get to the computer and they're like, I'm just not even putting anything up because I didn't check and the sound is awful or the lighting is awful don't do that to yourself, so where you are going to now, take a closer look at my lighting setup and record a little video, and my husband, who is here with me, is the person who actually sets up my lights for me hi, hire it out, hired out to the husband so he's going to hold a set of the life time for the real expert, right? So tell us why you're putting them where you're putting that we're going to use a traditional chris coghlan's traditional three lights set up, which is actually found through five minutes of youtube video searching and the reason why we do it will put one here and I'll keep going, but it's to get some light on her face so there's no shadows and there's also some light to give it depth while we're looking at it, so let me keep setting up good job, yeah, so he sets up my lights for me and one of the reasons you also set it up like this is because I travelled to panama with my husband teo work with my for something and we have it we worked with a professional video team and they were setting up the lights and chris kept asking them why are you setting this here or what are you doing with this here and so he actually figured it out also through watching before we had a video light set up but he adjusted it a little bit afterwards because he was paying attention teo the professional krill that was setting up our lights which was kind of cool look at him at work he's such a good husband it's helpful also tohave somebody behind the camera to tell you if it looks okay or what you need to adjust or he'll say your hair is doing something I don't know exactly what because he does is butthole, huh? Well now whether I think it's gonna look good or not except for this one time okay? Funny story while he's setting this up I used to make these backgrounds for every single that every single video on my side it would make a new background and one time we had these big reefs that I put up behind me it was around thanksgiving time good job and he didn't tell me that my head was in the middle of this reef and so it looks so funny afterwards that I didn't even want to use the video but I put up a video every wednesday so I had to do it so I warned my viewers I said I'm so sorry for this but my husband is to blame because he didn't tell me that my head looks like a reef is growing around it. Are we getting ready? Okay, so I'm going to set a little motif up here. I like to have something pretty on the table if there's gonna be a table beside me I want something that's gonna look nice in the shot and then I usually sit a little bit in front of it, so we're gonna have to move this back a little bit. All right? Do you need to adjust the tripod at all? This is your debut. Make it good e was born for this. Okay? We're ready to film. Okay, so we are going to film a short video to see what it looks like. First we are going to dim the studio lights so that you guys can take a look at what it looks like with my lighting kit. I'm gonna take my glasses off because we get a bit of glare from them when we film at home. Are we looking looking beautiful? Okay, I'm going to teach you how to film easy videos without a lot of headache keep watching to find out how I'm april boles olen and this is double your followers with creative marketing got it now we're gonna upload this and see what it looks like so you guys can see what that video looks like with my lights I'm going to teach you how to film easy videos without a lot of headache keep watching to find out how I'm april blows olen and this is double your followers with creative marketing all right? So it's pretty simple it's not ah lot of complication and the studio kit that I use the lighting kit if you want to know what it is it's fancy or studio twenty four hundred watt lighting kit with boom arm hair light soft box, really long name but if you type in fans here studio twenty four hundred what watt lighting kit then it'll come up on amazon that's where I bought my and it was one hundred twenty nine dollars when I bought it and it makes a huge difference. My video camera is just something that we bought we went to best buy and look for something that said it had decent audio that was the thing that was really important to me because I've used microphones before and they always seem like a pain, especially in the editing they're so like matching it up has always been difficult for me, so I wanted to try to get rid of that piece, and so the other thing that I do with my video is there's a little bit of white noise in the background of that I take that away in the editing process, so in that bonus video, you'll see how I take away that white noise in the editing process and the audio sounds better, so that is how I do it. Do you guys have any questions about it? Do you need all three light? Is that required? I would say it looks best with all three lights we've tried when we're in our lazy mode, trying to do it with less than three lights, but it looks much better with all three lights. One thing that I do do is I use these lights also for periscope, but you, but sometimes I don't use all three sometimes I will just put one in front of me because I need more light wherever it is sometimes if I have all three set up, I'll use all three, so I also used these for periscope, so you, khun, do double duty with them as well, which I think is really great. She is on the web cams when we were all talking, no cast, no, I didn't have any lighting set up when we did those live calls because that was good lighting that was just the chandelier of me ok yeah that was good to patty's talking about we did some live calls before for anybody who's watching at home we did some life calls before the course um yeah, that was just the chandelier above me okay, yeah, it looks really if I used that it looks really yellow on video like these lights take away that yellow uh I was just curious um if you want to try it out what you would suggest for a background um I know you said add props but like what should be behind you if any oh that's a great question usually I just have my white wall behind me before I was making now I just used my white wall before I was making different back dropped every week because at that point in time I was lacking this creative spark and that was my creativity for the week is to make my backdrop for my videos I had thoughts of different backdrops um my from heart made blog's she has these really pretty bookshelves set up with all this nice stuff behind her and she uses that I think it's really dependent upon your brand if you are really like a professional brand that doesn't have a ton of creativity built into your business, then something very simple like a white wall and just you talking is probably going to be the best bet for your brand but if your brand has a lot of creativity in it, then having some other things in the shot can be nice. I really like marie for leo. Have you seen marie for leo's videos? There's so much stuff. There is so much stuff. Yes, do that to cry, but if you just had the table with the flowers, I think that's all you would need. Okay, so you don't need all the other stuff behind her to create, like, a really nice, warm, cozy feeling. If you just have what I had, like the table with a mug, maybe a vintage camera in a in a flower or a plant that would be enough. Or you could switch this out for washing tape, or you could you know what I mean? So if you just have a little something, I think it is nice, okay, especially for a brand like yours, I think it would be nice. Thank you. Um, a lot of the videos that I do are sort of over table shots because I do lettering tutorials, and I think a few other of us are talking about arts and crafts tutorials or knitting tutorials. How does the lighting set up? Defer for something where you want to show your hands, the lighting kit that I have has this is what they call a boom arm, and so it goes up and you can actually make it go up really far, and so it can be right above you so that the light is coming down and there are no shadows, so I would say, play around with having that above you and then having still two lights on either side to get rid of the shadows down below. That's what I would try anybody else was that helpful? Because help self all right, great, yeah. So today's mission is to record a video that's less than one minute, introducing yourself in your business, edit it and share it in the double your followers private facebook group and added to your about paige if you end up loving it. So just to get yourself comfortable with video, you don't even have to put this on your website. It can just be you introducing yourself and playing around with the editing process a little bit and just putting it in the facebook group to introduce yourself to everybody else who's in the facebook group so we can get to know each other even better. That's the first piece of the homework and then using the blog's video blueprint record your next video for your block or social media or landing page. Or do your first periscope or your next periscope with these things in mind, so you can pick and choose whatever is going to work best for your business. And if you don't, if you can't push yourself to do both, I totally understand you. Khun, do the first one or the second one it's up to you.